Playing With Things

Contributed by Matthew Hartwell on 18/09/09

I’m finally learning the differences beyond the obvious between red and white wines when I meet Sarah. She’s tall and unattractively skinny. She wears glasses and laughs at the things I say, especially when they’re nerdy.

She’s a collector’s item. One of a kind. Mint in box, untouched, through every fault of her own. I’m a mishmash personality assembled from Casablanca and Fight Club, and she eats it up. We go to dinner and she pays. After our first anniversary, I stop returning her calls.

Toy enthusiasts will tell you that a mint in box Optimus Prime from the original Transformers line can fetch several hundred dollars. It isn’t unheard of to break a thousand on the deal, assuming you can find someone willing to pay it. Thanks to the internet, finding suckers is easier than ever. Out of box, that same action figure will run fifteen bucks, tops. It’s likely been played with, scratched, bent. It’s reduced to three bucks at a garage sale, next to the Endor Ewok Treehouse Playset going for eight. Cheap plastic and nostalgia for the price of a hot meal.

Cole and I meet at a costume party. I’m wearing only jean-short cutoffs and declare myself a never-nude, and she’s dressed as Madeleine, the popular French childrens’ character. Her laughter is far more reserved, and she berates me during sex, and encourages me to go to the gym. After six months of fitness classes together, I begin seeing our instructor, Laura, on weeknights while Cole is at work.

Fads are fleeting things by nature. They are popular for short periods of time, send people into hysterics, and then vanish, hopefully never to be heard from again. Star Wars seems to find a resurgence every other year or so, but women don’t have a dedicated marketing department behind them, and their flaws are far less forgivable.

Laura tells me how she wants to travel, and while we’re in Chicago, the Paris of the Midwest, I meet a bartender whose name escapes me. I move in with her for several weeks, and spend most of them drunk and/or in her bed. My inbox is full of emails from Laura when I finally sober up, and they promptly go into the trash can.

Variant and chase edition figures drive demand up. By packaging one or two per case, retailers are encouraged to purchase extras to cater to customer demand. Though these seem to be special and different, in the end you realize they’re nothing more than the same old thing with a new coat of paint.